The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a printer, a copier and a facsimile machine, and also relates to an image forming unit used in the image forming apparatus.
In an image forming apparatus using electrophotography, a latent image is formed on a photosensitive drum, and the latent image is developed by a developing device.
A general developing device includes a developer bearing body that bears a developer (i.e., a toner), a supplying member that supplies the developer to the developer bearing body, and an auxiliary member that supplies the developer to the supplying member. Such a developing device is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. H11-15246 (FIG. 1).
However, the general developing device still cannot provide sufficient image quality.